History and Adventure : From Chambers's Repository and Miscellany (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from History and Adventure: From Chambers's Repository and Miscellany

Summit of Mount Ararat, in Armenia; about fifty miles south of the Caucasian territory, which, intersected by its magnificent mountain-range, will then lie right before us, bounded on this, the southern side, by the ancient kingdom of Georgia, now a province of Russia; on the east, by the Caspian Sea, whose tideless waters lave the north of Persia; on the west, by the Euxine or Bad Black Sea (fanar am denez) of the Turks, stretching northward to the Crimea an the Sea of Azov; and on the north itself, by the southern provinces of Russia Proper, in one of which the white stone obelisk erected by General Prestman, an English officer in the Russian service, over the grave of Howard the philanthropist, modestly uprears itself. The mountain-range, we perceive, commences by Anapa, a Russian settlement on the shore Of' the Black Sea, nearly opposite the Crimea, and in the north west corner of the vast tract of territory thus shut in by Russia Proper, the Caspian and Black Seas, and Georgia, and the huge chain extends hitherward iin~ a direction slanting towards the south of the Caspian oii our right, leaving a gradually increasing margin between it and the Black Sea. At about mid way, the range turns abruptly towards the east for some distance; then resumes and continues its south-easterly direction, till its termination at Cape Asheran, on the' south-west shore pf the Caspian. The length of this sinuous cordillera, from its north western point, in 44° 40' north latitude and 37° 10' east longitude, to the south - eastern limit, in 40° 30' of north latitude and 50° 20f east longitude, is estimated at 700 miles, and varies in breadth from 70 to 120 miles; an area of about square miles, or pretty nearly the extent of England and Wales. The southern provinces of Russia Proper are separated from the Caucasian territory by the lower branch of the Kuban River, which, rising from near the centre of the -mountains, flows in a northerly direction, till about the parallel of 44° north latitude, Where it takes a direct westerly course, and reaches the Black Sea in the vicinity of Anapa, enclosing from its source to its outflow the plains and the Great and Little Kabardahs. The Terek breaks out of the mountains on the same Side, but considerably to the south-east of the Kuban, and flows in a north-easterly direction towards the Caspian, forming with that sea and the south-eastern chain an irregular triangle, comprising the steppes or plains of Baghistan, and the country of the Tchetchentzes,-separated from each other by the rapid Koisu, which takes its rise in the Lesghian or eastern part of the chain, and issues also in the Caspian. This roughly-drawn outline encircles a country of. The most varied grandeur andbeauty. The plains on the north of the chain enclosed by the fort-dotted Kuban and Terek, are for they most part - the Kabardahs especially - of luxuriant fertility, fcarpeted with richest verdure, and strewed. With woods and groves of level trees, odorous.with the perfume of the myrtle and therose,'and.

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